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Donald Trump slammed by Republicans Bob Corker and Jeff Flake for his 'disregard of truth'

Updated
Thu 26 Oct 2017, 10:17 AM AEDT

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Mr Trump said Senator Bob Corker "couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee."

Reuters

United States senator Bob Corker has eviscerated President Donald Trump repeatedly on national television, calling him a liar who has "debased the country" in an extraordinary diatribe against a sitting president by a fellow Republican.

Key points:

Corker says "debasement" of America is what Trump will be remembered for

He says world leaders are aware the US President blatantly lies

Trump hits back that Corker made the US a global joke with the Iran deal

Another senator says he won't run next year as politics has become "undignified"

Senator Corker, who is not seeking re-election next year, accused the President of telling falsehoods that could easily be proven wrong and of wilfully damaging the country's standing in the world, exposing deepening divisions in the Republican Party under Mr Trump's White House.

"The President has great difficulty with the truth on many issues," Senator Corker said in a CNN interview at the Capitol, before Mr Trump was due to meet with senators to seek consensus on proposed tax cuts.

"It's amazing. Unfortunately world leaders are very aware that much of what he says is untrue," Senator Corker continued, in the sharpest of his bitter public exchanges with the President in recent weeks.

"Certainly people here are because these things are provably untrue. They're just factually incorrect and people know the difference."

Shortly after, Mr Trump was also attacked in a dramatic speech on the Senate floor by Republican Jeff Flake, who said American politics had become inured to "reckless, outrageous and undignified" behaviour from the White House.

"The instinct to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people," said Senator Flake, who announced he would not run for re-election next year.

Senator Flake criticised the "flagrant disregard of truth and decency" that he said is undermining American democracy.

Speaking later to reporters, Senator Corker called Mr Trump a bully.

Mr Trump hit back on Twitter after Senator's Corker's television interviews, calling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman "incompetent" and reprising one of his trademark derisive nicknames.

The senator from Tennessee, whose recent announcement he would not seek re-election in November 2018 has freed him from the need to stick to a voter-friendly script, pulled no punches in his onslaught against Mr Trump.

Trump 'purposely breaking down' global ties

The latest exchange began overnight when Senator Corker advised the White House not to interfere in lawmakers' tax deliberations and called Mr Trump's lunch a "photo op".

Later, Mr Trump took to Twitter to belittle Senator Corker, a national security adviser on his presidential campaign, with an early morning tweet in which he anticipated opposition for his administration's tax plan.